Grimes Opens Up In A New Documentary From ‘Fader’

With Art Angels, Grimes managed to craft one of the most visionary, unexpected, and fearless pop records in years. In a new documentary from Fader, Claire Boucher leaves her pop auteur alter ego behind, and reveals the creative process behind her genre-bending masterpiece.

Grimes explains that after feeling like she lost control of her own narrative, she felt compelled to create new personas to help her reclaim that control. "Grimes as one person cannot represent more than a couple ideas,” she says. “That’s why I started developing some of the other characters, like really abstract from who I am or what I am. You can start being an actor and, like, start adding in more voices and start realizing that not everything has to fully reflect you. The art angels are the face of it.”

The Canadian singer held nothing back when discussing the frustrations of being a woman working in the music industry, and how she channeled that frustration into her new record. "So much of my music is just, like, against the people who are trying to take it away from me,” she said. "I’d constantly be getting emails from producers and stuff being like, ‘I’d love to, like, work on some tracks on your album,’ and it’s just like, that’s like me saying to you guys, ‘Hey, can I film this interview for you?’” she says. “It’s like, people offering to do your job all the time, and it’s just infuriating.”

But from the sound of it, Grimes has the whole pop star thing figured out. “You have to push people and you have to become aggressive or you can’t get your way.”

Watch Art Angel above.